Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/214

188 in yielding any established principles of law or government to the suggestion of modern theory."

Even Washington, in a letter to Alexander Spotswood, said that it was time that the country had laws against those aliens who wrote and spoke "for the express purpose of poisoning the minds of our people."

Unfortunately for Wolcott and Adams and the other Federalists, the "modern theory "was ensconced more firmly by the attempt to check it than by any other measure since the similar endeavor on the part of George the Third.

But the political insanity of the Federalists did not end with these attacks on the press and on aliens, which added large forces to those who already believed that a tenet of the Federalist faith was the belief that "there ought to be in America only two sorts of people: one very rich, the other very poor." Fisher Ames expressed the bitterness of the Federalists when he wrote in 1803: "Democracy cannot last." Dennie, the editor of the Portfolio, declared: "A Democracy is scarcely tolerable at any period of national history," and this paragraph was reprinted by the Federalist papers.

As if this were not sufficient handicap for a party about to go to the people for a verdict, the leaders quarreled openly among themselves. Hamilton administered the final coup de grace to Adams. A few weeks before the election in 1800 he devoted himself to penning a severe attack on the President, though whether he intended that it should be public property before the election is a question. In any case, Aaron Burr, of all persons, succeeded